X-ball

[hmmm]

Word on the Street is that Dyansty will not be playing in the event. What is up with that? They have Won the Millennium-series displaying some of the best ball ever and now they might
be barred from the best possible event in paintball history.
What is the deal? Robbo do you have any answers?

 

[Baca Loco]

Way to go, Nick

Clear and concise and to the point. Look for the prospect of team names to carry over but maybe not rosters as original league may use a player draft which would really throw the remaining teams and players into a blender.
Also likely gonna be some issues with current Pro teams that have contractual agreements with some of their sponsors--don't see those going away. At least not easily.

 

[cjohns]

This will obviously be the biggest change in paintball history since the introduction of sup' air. It will definitely be interesting to see which players will got to the x-ball format and which players will stay with sup air tournaments. I feel that it would be great to have the option to play either and hopefully both formats will be around for a long time.

 

[Glorykid]

hmm very interesting, sh8t talk about stir things up or what. where doe's leave our TEAM ENGLAND then.
they will have to play the NPPL surely.

all very interesting.

 

[headrock6]

this is all good and exciting but

...What happens if X-Ball fails miserably??If PSP runs and takes their teams with them what are the long term affects they could suffer by bolting from an already sucessfull league??Say X-Ball gets going and after a year it disbands sorta XFL style..Would it be wise for the promoters to give up all they have for something that isnt even proven yet??It just seems like their putting all their chips on the table and havent seen their cards yet..It could even open the door for the NPPL and Millenium Series to really put together something amazing as Nick said above..Just surprised at the risk this will be for the promoters

 

[Baca Loco]

How 'bout this?

The system is already in place as is the basic personnel for organizing and running standard NPPL-type events. Why give it up?
I realize the interim agreement between PSP and NPPL ends after Cup but doesn't mean another agreement can't be made, does it? And after all the time and effort the promotors have put in why not hedge their bets if they can work something out?

On a different tack it seems to me a real effort to launch an X-Ball league is going to require substantial capital investment and that's whats behind the schedule change and adding "exhibition" X-Ball to Disney. Isn't it gonna take media money to get this started right? In which case maybe the "exhibition" is intended to sell Disney on the product?

Headrock--I don't disagree there's a real risk involved but the payoff compared to what exists now is huge.

Chipster--the only important distinction if an X-Ball league works is players paid to play and players paying to play.

Where are you, Tony Montana? (little inside joke)

 

[g8x]

I think one of the major road blocks in X-Ball's way is actually television itself. I havn't had the chance to actully watch an X-Ball game, but if it's anything like watching pro's, it'll be a difficult thing to translate to the small screen.

All other televised sports have some sort of centrality to them. Whether it be a specific contestant (like skaters in the x-games) or a ball (like basketball, football...) which the players congregater around.

I had the opportunity to see my first tournament at AC this past august. I found that it was difficult to really watch the game, even from the 50. I wanted to know what was going on with the other side and some stuff that was going on right on the 50 that I couldn't see because of the various bunkers in the way. Granted, if X-Ball were to be televised, they would have better vantage points or more camera angles to show the action, but even with these solutions, it really seperates the spectator from the sport.

The other thing that i noticed while watching was player identification. In other sports, it's relatively easy to spot your favorite players, whether it be by the name/number on their back or their face. Since paintballers have to tuck so tight, it's really difficult to identify who's who. Of course, this could always be solved with different jerseys and/or announcers. Unless you're looking at them from the right angle, you still wouldn't be able to identify them yourselves.

<g8x><

 

[Tony Montana]

Dazed and confused, and I refuse to say anything more........

 

[TJ 2]

Think you're pretty much right team-wise Countess Nicola, but they'll all be regionalised...i.e. Colarado Avalanche, Pittsburgh All Americans, NY Ground Zero (Hmm, anyone feel a name change coming on there?) SC Ironmen etc.

Plus Strange won't be left out as such - they're a better team than the Gardners 'other' team, so look for them to amalgamate with the All As (hence AA/Strange already this year).

And yep, lotta people gonna be pissed...especially as BC ain't exactly rockin' da house, yet you gotta bring Kingman to tha party.

Impact on Europe won't be great though, not for a coupla years...

 

[Pinky_81]

Regarding TV

Everybody I know think it is THE most boring thing to watch videos with paintball... I as a paintball-player think they're great, but transfering this to TV I don't think it will be very succesfull - A shame...

Pinky